The best part of travel is when you discover someone, something or someplace you didn’t know existed who/what made an incredible impact in their world. Antoni Gaudi is that man and Barcelona is that place. In the early 1900’s he transformed Barcelona architecturally like few in history. He was a Catalan Catholic that brought Modernist design to Barcelona and the world. He was the Elon Musk of his day. Incredibly impactful in so much of life in northern Spain. We visited a few of his accomplishments.
First La Pedrera. Built in 1906-1912. A few description of this building: Nature turned into a building. A great petrified wave. An ensemble of organic, avistic forms. A stone poem, unique and unparalleled. Basically and “apartment house” gone out of control. His new, Modernist design elements had design elements. Almost overwhelming to see something so “out of the box” today, unimaginable 100 years ago. Think I liked it??
Roof top ventilation stacks
Looking up into one of the two internal courtyards
Looking up on the street façade. Few could afford to live here. A few still do, most of it is retail and museum now.
Next we visited the La Sagrada Familia Cathedral. This was started in 1888, and nobody has any true idea when it will be finished. Maybe 2040, maybe later. Again, Gaudi on steroids.. We have visited historic Cathedrals all over Western and Eastern Europe, although they are hundreds of years old, None of them approach the breadth and depth of design and vision that we saw in this cathedral. Overwhelming. Think I liked it??
Next was Park Guell. Again, designed by Gaudi. This was designed as an upscale housing development. Again, no control. Tom described it as Jurrassic-ish. Only a few homes, now museums. I think he spent so much time designing and building it, his intended audience had moved on. Great for our benefit though. Think I liked it?
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